Advice/Opinions? I'll be your neighbor soon. (Seattle, Renton: apartment, car insurance)

[Drizzly]

Hello to all. My family is going to be moving to Seattle soon, hopefully by the end of the year. I would appreciate some local advice tailored for our situation. Having seen so many similar posts; I am trying to keep this short, personal and to the point.

THE FACTS
- I'm an IT professional. I have a two year background in the field as a companies only in-house IT person.
- My wife is a Pharmacy Technician with a few years experience.
- We are both in our mid-twenties.
- I'm hoping to make between 40-50k when we get there.
- My wife would like to stay home to watch our three year old daughter as much as possible and I'm all for it.
- We are looking for an apartment and need at least two bedrooms and one bathroom.
- We want to live close to downtown Seattle.
- We have two cars and will probably take one.

COMMENTS
- Yes, we know that this is a tight budget. If it's any consolation, we currently have a $1400 mortgage payment and are squeezing by on less salary.
- We know that there is more affordable living farther away, but here's the deal: we currently live 45-60 minutes from any real city (more than 100k people) and we want to be in the action. We are willing to make sacrifices and have a smaller home if that means it is easier to get out and enjoy our surroundings. We are choosing to live in Seattle for just that, what it has to offer. Plus, I am hoping my career will see significant growth as we go.
- From what I have seen we will be paying around $1500/month for a two bedroom one bathroom apartment close to downtown (found these in Queen Ann).

QUESTIONS
- Does anything here seem way off-base? Like I said, I know it's tight but I'm assuming it's possible.
- I have read some things here and there about the IT presence in Seattle but any local opinions?
- How about Pharm Techs? Does anyone know if my wife would need to get certified for Washington and if the market for that position is open/thriving?
- When it comes to preschool and grade-school for my daughter, do any of the near downtown areas stick out as having good schools?
- Is it common and tolerable to have no AC?
- How common is it to have an off-street parking space for an apartment? Are they generally available if not offered? Are they even needed? Cost for one?
- Can anyone give me a quick summary of basic bill costs? Looking for: basic TV, broadband internet, gas, electric, parking, car insurance, grocery. I feel like I'm missing something...
- Are there any low/medium-budget grocery stores in the city? What are they? I am used to Wal-Marts everywhere (it's a tolerated relationship).

Alright, thats it for now...

Thanks in advance for taking the time to look at my post and answer, I really, truly appreciate it.

[Ira500]

Low/medium budget grocery stores:

Fred Meyer: Some of the stores have a grocery store in addition to everything else...The Greenwood neighborhood has one of them, not sure about the Ballard store..the Renton Fred Meyer has a large grocery store...

Saar's: There's one in Rainier Beach.

Viet Wha: One in Chinatown/International district and one on Martin Luther King Way south.

Grocery Outlet: Rainier Valley and the Central District..

[Drizzly]

@Ira500

Thank you for the helpful information. I will use it when I get there.

[obsidian97]

Forget about Wal-Mart if you're living in Seattle. The only one is far away, and the people there could be extras for the Cantina scene in Star Wars. It's a really crappy Wal-Mart by every account I've ever heard of (even by people I know really like Wal-Mart).

Trader Joe's is another sometimes cheap (depending on what you're looking for) place to shop. I'm not sure of where one would be in Seattle.

I heard the other day that some parts of Seattle are limiting the number of permits that they're going to give to residents to park on the streets to one. Maybe Ira knows more. Gas is expensive here. The cheapest gas (non-Costco) that I've seen today was an Arco up in Mukilteo that was selling for $3.69/gallon. Eastside Arco's are mostly around $3.89/gallon at the moment. I'm sure Seattle is higher than that. Arco tends to be about 5-10 cents cheaper than most other gas stations but they are cash/ATM only.

Groceries can be expensive. If you don't eat out much, and are vigilant about not letting food spoil, go to the cheaper stores, and limit your meat and fresh fruit/vegetable intake, you could live off of $10/day/per person. Eating out will quickly nuke that figure. Most places I've seen are about $10-15 for a reasonable sit-down meal (Red Robin type place) plus drinks and ~9% tax (it's higher for restaurants). Sandwiches are more like $6-$10.

Water/Gas/Electric/Cable in Redmond for us is (again, somewhat guessing here) something like $425 or so a month. Obviously not Seattle, but will give you an idea. We have energy efficient appliances and new vynil windows, composite roof, 2200 sq. ft.

The AC thing... it depends on who you ask and where you live. The biggest thing is that the days are long in the summer so the sun sorta bakes buildings over time. If you're used to not having AC, and you have a shaded building, you might be ok. Either way, it's not like there's a lot of the year where it's hot enough to worry about it. I think there's been 3 or so weeks (spread out, not all at a shot) this year where it's been above 80F. It does occasionally get into the 90's here, but that's usually just for a day or two.

We lived with it, southern exposure, no shade, big windows, and finally gave up towards the end of August. Having the windows open all the time made me feel like I was living in a tent rather than a house, made controlling the humidity difficult, loaded the house with dust, and gave us no options for noise control when our neighbor decided to power-wash his driveway for 8 hours straight until 10pm on a 90F+ day.

[Ira500]

Seattle is proposing reducing the number of parking permits per household, and at the same time have reduced the number of parking spaces developers must provide.
They're doing it all under the guise of being ecogroovey and encouraging public transit, but it just strikes me as another giveaway to developers.

City proposes limits on residential parking permits

[Drizzly]

@ obsidian97

Lots of helpful advice. Thank you. We actually pay more for gas, wow. Plus I have a 45min. drive to and from work 5 days a week. My wife thinks using a Zipcar might be a good thing to look into.

@ Ira500

Interesting article. I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on the matter. I don't know about one car per house, but anyone that has three or four seems a little ridiculous.

[obsidian97]

Originally Posted by Drizzly

Interesting article. I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on the matter. I don't know about one car per house, but anyone that has three or four seems a little ridiculous.

Really?

Two spouses that commute over the bridges, and a kid in college... wham, that's three.

They're easy to rack up with older kids.

[Drizzly]

Originally Posted by obsidian97

Really?

Two spouses that commute over the bridges, and a kid in college... wham, that's three.

They're easy to rack up with older kids.

I see where you are coming from but I just don't see it as necessary, especially with the kids. A job is justifiable, and I obviously don't know a whole lot about the area, but it looks like public transportation is adequate. Does your kid absolutely need a car? I would personally encourage my child to utilize the public transportation and take advantage of what the city has to offer. Sometimes a car for a teenager is too much freedom (and money, and risk). Believe me, I sound like an outsider saying this from an area where you need a car to get just about anywhere. But that's one of the reasons why we want to live in a larger city and I personally look forward to the possibility of shedding the responsibility of car ownership. Just my opinion, who knows, I might think differently when I live there.